messaging between computers started in the 1960’s.
The simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP) was re-
leased in 1982, and the famous RFC 822 description
of how to format e-mail messages was published later
that year. From that point on, e-mail programs were
a fixture on mainframes. Online services like
CompuServe and America Online (AOL) allowed
personal computers to access the Internet in the
early 1990’s. In addition to giving home users access
to their mainframe e-mail, online services provided
their own e-mail. By the time Microsoft’s Outlook
Express was bundled with Windows in 1998, millions
of people were using a common transport and for-
mat for e-mail.
In 1978, the first spam e-mail was sent by a Digi-
tal Equipment Corporation (DEC) salesman, Gary
Thuerk, to advertise the introduction of a new DEC
operating system. While no one knows for sure how
much spam was sent during the 1990’s, one estimate
is that consumers received more than 100 billion
spam e-mails in 1999. Typical of spamming attacks in
the 1990’s were those of Alan Ralsky, who used spam
to sell fraudulent insurance policies in 1996, and
continued to successfully send spam until 2008, when
he was indicted under the new Controlling the As-
sault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing
Act of 2003 (CAN-SPAM Act). One of the best-known
spam attacks of the 1990’s was the 419, or Nigerian
spam scam. This scam asked those receiving it to re-
veal their checking account information, and the
spammers then drained their bank account.
Impact Almost everyone gets spam e-mail, and a
large number of people get instant message, bulletin
board, or RSS feed spam as well. During the 1990’s,
antispam software was developed for individuals and
companies to control the problems of spam flood-
ing. The total volume of spam on the Internet had
become a major problem for network throughput.
Many of the efforts to counter spam involve re-
moving spammers’ Internet access. Spam and spam
scams became such serious problems that in 2003
Congress passed the CAN-SPAM Act, which estab-
lished the United States’ first national standards for
the sending of commercial e-mail and required the
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to enforce its pro-
visions.
Further Reading
Goodman, Danny.Spam Wars. New York: Select-
Books, 2004.
Schryen, Guido.Anti-Spam Measures: Analysis and De-
sign. New York: Springer, 2007.
George M. Whitson IIISee also America Online; Apple Computer; CGI;
Computers; DVDs; E-mail; Hackers; Internet; In-
stant messaging; Microsoft; MP3 format; PDAs; Sili-
con Valley; World Wide Web; Y2K problem. Speicher, Scott
Identification First U.S. pilot shot down during
Operation Desert Storm
Born July 12, 1957; Kansas City, Kansas
Died Perhaps January 17, 1991; central Iraq
Speicher was listed as one of the first U.S. casualties of the
Gulf War; however, his status was changed to missing and
he may still be alive.
Michael Scott Speicher was born and raised in Kan-
sas City, Kansas. While in his early teens, his family
moved to Jacksonville, Florida, where he finished
high school. Speicher then enrolled in Florida State
University, where he received a bachelor’s degree in
accounting and business management. Following in
his father’s footsteps, Speicher joined the U.S. Navy
and became a pilot. During the time leading up to
the Gulf War, he became a distinguished F/A-18
Hornet fighter pilot and was assigned to the aircraft
carrier USSSaratogain the Red Sea along with
twenty-five hundred other airmen.
As the war erupted, the U.S. military began con-
ducting its strategic air assault on Iraqi president
Saddam Hussein’s insurgent forces. On January 17,
1991, the evening of the first night invasion carried
out by U.S. pilots, Lieutenant Commander Michael
Speicher was shot down by enemy fire. Mixed re-
ports from U.S. military and intelligence officials be-
lieve that it may have been either a surface-to-air mis-
sile (SAM) or a projectile from a Iraqi Mig-25 fighter
plane that brought down his plane. Then secretary
of defense Dick Cheney stated that Speicher’s plane
had exploded into pieces, making Speicher the first
U.S. casualty of Operation Desert Storm. Thus,
Cheney along with other top Pentagon officials re-
fused to send an elite military unit to conduct search
and rescue for Speicher’s remains. Speicher’s status
was officially listed as killed in action (KIA) by the
Pentagon. During these early campaigns, Iraqi offi-The Nineties in America Speicher, Scott 797